He played tennis with Gershwin. He adored Hopalong Cassidy. He feared the number 13.

That’s right, kids! It’s Arnold Schoenberg’s birthday!

In common with many composers who fled political unrest in Europe, Schoenberg settled in Los Angeles. He was outspoken about his dislike of many of his contemporaries. Igor Stravinsky, similarly catty, lived only a few miles away. Earlier in their careers, they were on friendly, or at least cordial terms (by Schoenberg and Stravinsky standards), but after 1925, when Schoenberg wrote a “nasty verse” (according to Stravinsky) and set it as a canon, the friendship cooled. For his part, Stravinsky told the press that he viewed Schoenberg as more of a chemist than an artist. Their contempt for one another never mellowed, and the trash talk flowed.

This is from Schoenberg’s “Three Satires.” “Vielseitigkeit” (“Versatility”) is a palindromic canon. It can be performed front to back or back to front by inverting the music and reading it backwards. Igor is savaged as “kleine Modernsky.”

“But who’s this beating the drum?
Why, it’s little Modernsky!
He’s had his hair cut in an old-fashioned queue,
And it looks quite nice!
Like real false hair!
Like a wig!
Just like (or so little Modernsky likes to think)
Just like Papa Bach!”

Meow, boys!

After Schoenberg’s death, Stravinsky apparently developed an interest in “chemistry,” as he began to assimilate Schoenberg’s twelve-tone system of composition into his later works.

This one, “Requiem Canticles,” was given its first performance at Princeton’s McCarter Theater on October 8, 1966. In attendance were Aaron Copland and J. Robert Oppenheimer. Afterward, Oppenheimer requested that the piece be played at his funeral. The request would be honored only four months later. The “Requiem Canticles” would also be performed at Stravinsky’s funeral in Venice in 1971.

Ironically, Stravinsky and Schoenberg shared a disciple in Robert Craft, who conducted this recording. Craft championed both composer’s music and apparently was accepted in both camps.

I wonder if Schoenberg ever met Rachmaninoff? Now that would be a scowling contest I would pay to see.

PHOTOS: Showboat Stravinsky and scowly Schoenberg